


If the Fates Allow

by firstbreaths



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 08:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstbreaths/pseuds/firstbreaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt has Blaine's missing puzzle piece - literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If the Fates Allow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for klaineadvent 2013, prompt #10 (jigsaw)

“I can’t believe it,” Blaine says, letting his head tip forward, forehead resting on the table next to the puzzle. He still can’t believe Sam bought him a puzzle that included two puppies in matching bowties for his birthday, but they’re adorable, even as he squints and considers them from this whole new angle. “This puzzle has been a labor of _love,_ Sam” he says, frowning, “and it survived Artie drunkenly crashing into the table leg on that night we don’t talk about, and Tina spilling that bottle of wine in her excitement about Unique’s new boyfriend, and –“

 

Okay, they really need to cut back on the alcohol. Tina _was_ talking about the two of them going on a diet together just last week.

 

“It’s just missing a piece, Blaine,” Sam says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and squeezing softly. “I’ll contact the guy I bought it off on Ebay, see if he knows where it is. Otherwise, I’ll get a refund, and we can spend it on tickets to see ‘Mockingjay’ again. I’m sure someone will get that you’re meant to be Caesar Flickerman, and not just a glittery porn star version of your usual self, if you want to dress up again.”

 

Blaine rolls his eyes. “It’s not my fault we both appreciate the miracle that is good quality hair gel,” he says, a little more curtly than he intended, and it’s a sign of exactly how good a housemate Sam is that he just shrugs it off, removing his arm from Blaine’s shoulders and heading into the kitchen.

 

Blaine sits for a moment, sighing because the puppy on the right looks so incomplete without the bottom of his paw, and then he follows Sam into the kitchen and wordlessly slips in beside him to start preparing a salad for dinner. By the time Tina and Artie come home, the kitchen filling with the smell of freshly cooked pasta and the sound of music as the four of them start in on an impromptu rendition of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ whilst setting the table, Blaine almost forgets about the missing puzzle piece.

 

*

 

He’s reminded again a few weeks later, the puzzle now packed up and stowed in its box, still sitting on the coffee table next to several dirty ice-cream bowls and Tina’s growing collection of poetry books, when Sam says, “so I got in touch with the guy who sold me the puzzle, and it just so happens that he lives in New York, _and_ he found the missing piece at his place, apparently it ended up being misplaced by his roommate, or something. Here’s his number – text him about getting it dropped off”.

 

He hands Blaine a crumpled piece of paper, the ink smudged and with something that looks like a pizza stain on it.

 

“You didn’t have to do that Sam,” Blaine says, smiling fondly, but he shoots off a text message to the guy – _Kurt_ , Sam’s note says – anyway. “Thank you,” he says, and it’s a thank you for everything, really – for the birthday gift, for being here in New York, for being here for him.

 

Sam just gives him a fist bump in return, and Blaine suspects that he heard everything he was trying to say.

 

*

 

Kurt texts him back just as he’s finishing up his nightly moisturizing routine.

 

From Kurt: _Thursday at 4 sound good? I’ll buy you coffee afterwards as an apology for not including it in the box in the first place. I know all too well the agony of not finishing what I start._

Blaine almost knocks over the pot of aloe vera lotion at the edge of his dresser in his hurry to text back.

 

From Blaine: _Thursday at 4 it is. You can tell me why you decided to sell such an adorable puzzle in the first place whilst I finish my medium drip._

From Kurt: _You’ve obviously never had flashbacks to trying to get animal hair out of sensitive fabrics, then. I’d willingly sacrifice my entire accessories budget for a dry-cleaner closer than eight blocks away._

Blaine’s suddenly glad that none of his housemates at home, all out at play rehearsals and work and their fortnightly feminist lit reading circles, because it means that nobody barges in to ask him why he’s giggling in front of the bathroom mirror.

He gets it, that’s all – there’s a reason he’s been holding out so long against Tina’s demands to get a cat.

 

_*_

Kurt arrives at their apartment a few minutes early, and Blaine pulls his bowtie together with one hand – because he could he _not_? – as he buzzes him up. He pulls open the door with a flourish, and then promptly steps back, because Kurt?

 

Is gorgeous, with his hair swept up high, accentuating his cheekbones, and what looks like an Alexander McQueen scarf wrapped tight around his neck. Blaine’s suddenly glad he’d gone with the bowtie for more than just its ironic capabilities – he knows he looks good.

 

“I’m Kurt. Obviously,” he says, holding out something to Blaine, the puzzle piece he’d been waiting for, and _right._ “I’m so sorry about the mistake, my roommate has this horrible habit of going through people’s drawers, and somehow it must have fallen out of the box and ended up under the bed, which, if she’d thought to look under there in the first place –“

 

Kurt breaks off with a start, hands twisting into his scarf, and says, “I’m so sorry. I love her, really, even if I never thought I’d end up calling the most terrifying girl at my high school family, and you really didn’t need to hear my entire life story.”

 

Blaine just chuckles, tucking the puzzle piece into the pocket of his button-down and letting the laughter spill out of him. “I ought to introduce you to my own housemates sometime. Well, Sam you sort of know via eBay, I guess, but nothing says ‘welcome to the real world’ like unpacking your kitchen boxes with a bunch of high school friends to a Beyonce medley.”

 

And it hits him, then, why he’d been so frustrated about it, all those weeks ago - this puzzle has been somewhat of a centerpiece, in this house the four of them have being trying so hard to make a home. Blaine had been working on it for weeks, in between rants about homework and fights about whose turn it was to clean the bathroom and impromptu Friday night sing-alongs when it’ was snowing too hard to go out and no one could agree on a movie, and this New York thing might not be as easy as he’d expected, but they fit here, together. _He_ fits here, in this apartment, at this school, in this city, in this life he’s built from the pieces of himself he’d brought along from Ohio, where his edges had been jagged and chipped and bent as he’d tried to fit there.

 

He’s not sure how to explain all of that to an almost stranger, though, so he just says, “it’s like the Katy Perry song, you know? Like – you find that missing piece, and then you just feel complete.”

 

“Like the Katy Perry song,” Kurt says, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, and Blaine might not need to finish the puzzle, might be completely and utterly over the moon with how his life in New York has turned out so far even if his friends do use too much hot water sometimes, but puzzles are just that, after all, and Blaine’s found that the fun has been in the assembly; he’s enjoyed getting to tease out his life, figure out the best way the pieces fit together.

 

He holds out his hand to Kurt, lacing their fingers together in a way that just feels right, and smiles as Kurt blushes to the edges of his scarf, high up on his neck, but doesn’t let go.

 

“Shall we?” he says. “I believe you know my coffee order already.”

 

(He’ll come home later and put the final piece in place, right where it belongs).

 

 

 

 


End file.
